- Chicago should impose a “safety and security fee” — as high as $5 a month on homes and businesses — to generate the $70 million needed to hire 700 additional police officers, an influential alderman said Thursday.Ald. George Cardenas (12th), chairman of the City Council’s Health Committee, said Chicago desperately needs a surge in police hiring to ease a severe manpower shortage that has hamstrung the city’s ability to stop a surge in homicides and shootings.If a $5 “safety and security fee” was tacked on to the monthly electric bill of Commonwealth Edison’s one million residential and 170,000 business customers and remitted to the city, it would generate the $70 million needed to bolster the force by 700 officers and bolster community policing, Cardenas said.
So.....what happens when the citizens (and "citizens") of the south and west sides argue that they are neither "safe" nor "secure" in light of a 30% increase in homicides, a sizable rise in shooting numbers and burglaries through the roof?
And we're sure Com-Ed would just love to be the conduit for all this money. How much of a "service fee" are they going to charge the city for being the bag-man....we mean middle-man?